Saturday, September 8, 2012

The Garden - 3D waterfall

I only get small bits of time at home to focus on personal hobbies - there tends to be more important things that need attention around the house. Today, I spent my free time trying out my idea of making a 3D waterfall for The Garden.

I carved the waterfall texture right off of the wall and used that as the sides of the structure. I then created a cutfile that creates the pieces I need to build the inner structure. I designed it as a solid center to which I glue the sides. This made it relatively easy to assemble, and very sturdy.

My next step will be to put textures on the center piece. I'll take some of the water texture and manipulate it a little to give it the impression of motion. I'm thinking that for the ends, I'll make separate pieces that glue into place. This will allow me to add a little lip, making the sides a little taller than where the water is. On the top end, I'll be able to steal some texture from the sides. For the bottom end, I will probably make two styles - one with water flowing down and the other without.

I'm also thinking that I can easily modify all of this to make a second waterfall piece that carries from where this one leaves off, allowing for even more terrain variations.

Since it's a solid piece with both sides textured (rather than attached to the wall like I originally planned) this can stand on its own. I like being able to use props that integrate well with the set to help break up the boxiness of TLX builds.

I'm hoping it won't be too had, but I would like to rebuild the wall so that it doesn't have the waterfall texture on it. This would make extending the waterfall out from the wall look better.